Dogfight

This article is about the aerial combat maneuver. For the blood sport, see Dog fighting. For other uses, see Dogfight (disambiguation).
An F-16 Fighting Falcon and an F-14 Tomcat engaged in a mock dogfight as part of U.S. Navy TOPGUN training

A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft that is conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requiring the use of individual basic fighter maneuvers (BFM) to attack or evade one or more opponents. This differs from aerial warfare, which deals with the strategy involved in planning and executing various missions.[1]

Dogfighting first occurred during the Mexican Revolution in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. It was a component of every major war after that, though with steadily declining frequency, until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. Since then, longer-range weapons such as beyond-visual-range missiles have made dogfighting largely obsolete.[2][3]

Video of the F-15 Eagle's dogfighting capabilities
  1. ^ Robert Shaw, Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering, pp. xi, xii
  2. ^ Hallion, Richard P. (1992). Storm Over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War. Smithsonian Institution Press. pp. 1–10.
  3. ^ Roblin, Sebastien (December 11, 2018). "The F-22 and F-35 Will Be Obsolete: What Will a Sixth-Generation Fighter Look Like?". The National Interest. Archived from the original on December 16, 2018. Retrieved December 16, 2018.